I’m sure you’re tired of us hearing us all whine about minutiae like Bobo’s new book, the comments on this blog, and nuclear radiation, so I thought I’d do a feel good post about wine. I went to a wine dinner last night where I tried wine from Pennsylvania (a Bordeaux blend), Idaho (riesling), Missouri (some kind of weird dessert wine), and Mississippi (a Muscadine, whatever that is). The Mississippi wine was from Natchez. I like that because there’s a Solomon Burke song that mentions Natchez.

https://www.balloon-juice.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/balloon_juice_header_logo_grey.jpg00Doug!https://www.balloon-juice.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/balloon_juice_header_logo_grey.jpgDoug!2011-03-18 15:23:582011-03-18 15:25:50And a good saloon in every single town

You know the more I think about it the more the Libya no fly zone looks less like Iraq and more like Yugoslavia. From the broad based UN sanctioned coalition to the pledge for no ground troops, to the lesser-of-two-evils allied factions on the ground, the whole thing looks like some kind of un-holy combination of what we did in Bosnia and Kosovo. It’s even starting around the same time as Allied Force. I eagerly await the carping from congressional Republicans about how the several hundred troops we commit to the post conflict UN stabilization force (LFOR?) in a few months is far worse than defeat (while simultaneously telling us how we should have kept 100,000 in Iraq indefinitely).

I’m no wine pro; in fact I usually have to be driven home from wine tastings. But my stomping grounds (hardehar!) include the Atlantic northern seacoast, and my tastes run distinctly to white wines made there.

Regarding the Massachusetts wine, I’m beginning to suspect that if he tried exactly one wine per state, he can’t have tried very hard.

@JGabriel: In Washington, everything east of the Cascades is desert. the wine growers say it’s good because every drop of water that goes onto the vines is from irrigation, therefore they can control what they get and when.

I knew a guy from Texas who used to make muscadine wine. Now, if you picked up a bottle of wine from “Chateau Texas,” would your expectations be very high? I’m no wine expert but it tasted horrible.

Riesling is my wife’s favorite and there are some nice ones from upstate NY. I’m kind of disappointed they reviewed a Michigan riesling when they could have gone with one of those awesome Michigan cherry wines.

I’ve been reading Red State a bit lately. I find it like looking at something both grotesque, but intriguing enough I can’t turn away.

A couple of things really stand out. One is their unquestioning belief that their world view is correct and all other world views are wrong. The second is how they have integrated right-wing talking points to justify their world view.

In Wisconsin last week, it was the police and firefighters unions threatening local business* with boycotts should they not support the union efforts to turn back the clock on their so-called collective bargaining rights. Now, like a pack of wolves, the Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC) has jumped into the age-old racket of shaking-down businesses. WEAC has sent an e-mail to hundreds of businesses belonging to the Fox Valley Chamber of Commerce offering to put a sign in a window for those businesses that support the union goals.

WEAC letter in part:

In exchange for signing a pledge that says they oppose limiting collective bargaining, businesses will receive a poster they can put in their window so union members with “substantially less discretionary money to spend” can support those businesses which support them.

The conclusion:

In days of old, this type of activity was relegated to street gangs and the mafia. Today, it’s just another tactic in the union arsenal of intimidation.

What’s interesting is whoever in the summer of 2009 decided to brand the SEIU workers, who got into a kerfuffle with Tea Parties at some town hall somewhere, as “thugs” has had that impression stick to the wing-nuts.

The comments basically reinforce the view that unions=thugs.

A sign in your widow today or a rock tomorrow.
johnt Friday, March 18th at 11:08AM EDT (link) I’m not sure, but thugs may be too nice a word for these creatures.
I would be more sanguine about this if the low lifes hadn’t already trashed public, state government , property, if there hadn’t been repeated acts of violence, shown on this site, against Normal People, if Dem state legislators made a mockery of their oaths and office, if this boycott didn’t have the blessing of the Thing in the WH, busing of goons, the fanatical Richard Trunka, and a media to low to urinate on.
This may serve as a brief and sanitized litany of how this boycott is different from others. It goes a little further then refusing to buy your strawberry malted at Pop’s ice cream parlor.

In all honesty, boycotts are part of the free market and consumers expressing displeasure at business practices is part of the trade off we have for living in a free society.

They don’t stop to question if their friendly neighborhood beat cop should be associated with Al Capone or the teacher their little snot really likes, has the same view on “rubbing out” the competition the Lucky Luciano had. They don’t like unions. They like the idea of denigrating unions by labeling them thugs, therefore everything they read about unions must be a result of their “thug” / “gangster” tendencies.

There’s no way to penetrate this logic loop with anything – facts, humor, etc.

I don’t see how we can move forward as a country, when the crazy-ass 27% folks, will just ignore everything they don’t agree with and shout over the other 23% of right-leaning folks (assuming half the population is conservative or may vote Republican), who want to keep the crazification factor to a minimum.

Am I a bad person if my wine sampling technique is to choose something with a pretty label from the discount shopping cart full of bottles when I walk into the Winn-Dixie?

Also, too, because this is as close to an open thread as is available amongst all the gloom and doom and babies whining about somebody poking them in the back seat of the station wagon — I would like to submit that some friends and I are starting our own small press and we’re going to be blogging our adventures in real time.

@Sentient Puddle:
First link: douchebag reporter from Wash Post appointed at WH. Second link: evidence from Balloon Juice itself that said reporter is a douchebag. (Really a lot of hits at Daily Howler.)

@gene108: There’s no way to penetrate this logic loop with anything – facts, humor, etc.

Now, Gene, it’s not about penetrating the loop. It’s about isolating the contagion and keeping it from spreading further.

To that end, I recommend NPR’s political analyst Horst Lleftbarne. He does a bang-up job, about three weeks after any meme reaches critical mass inside the Beltway, of breaking down exactly how NPR got suckered into swallowing it whole this time.

my dad brought me some red wine from New Mexico, of all places, last year. wasn’t completely bad. reminds my of NC reds – ok in moderation, but i wouldn’t choose them over west coast, Aussie, South American or European.

The reason Muscadine wines are bad is that Muscadine is a vitus labrusca grape, which is native to North America and distinct from the vitus vinifera grapes that are usually used to make wine. Native American grapes have an inherent “foxy” quality that almost always makes bad wines. Almost anything made of labrusca grapes — Muscadine, Concord, Scuppernong, Catawba, Delaware, Niagra — will be something to avoid.

There are lots of good wines being made somewhere besides the west coast, but they are made of vinifera grapes.

To name two that I’d put on any table without appology or qualification: I had a 2007 Chateau Morrisette Cabernet Sauvignon from Virginia that was an awful lot like Silver Oak. And here’s a review of the 2007 Jean Farris “Tempest,” a Bordeaux blend, made in Kentucky that was enough of a rave I drove to the winery to try it out. The wine did not disappoint, and at about $30 a bottle was reasonable enough that I bought a six pack to take home. Jean Farris also produces a Petite Sirah that kicks significant ass.

I’d also heartily recommend Canadian ice wines, and Michigan is starting to produce some Riesling that stands up pretty well. The North Fork of Long Island is showing some stuff, too, though its preoccupation with obese Merlot overshadows what it’s really good at, which is cooler climate whites.

Whoever chose those US wines for Joel Stein to taste is an idiot. Sangiovese from VA? VA’s strengths are whites, and then Norton and Cab Franc for the reds. Viognier from several VA vineyards (a white between pinot grigio and chardonnay) is awesome, unique and delicious. And then there is the dessert version of Viognier (should be served with cheesecake).

At least they went red for Texas (an excellent spot for reds — there is a lovely wine cafe at the Dallas airport) and Yadkin Valley for NC. And I will give the selection chops for several Norton’s (the US’s only native wine grape, lost during Prohibition, but found in an Indiana cemetery), but still.

Okay, a ghost, a werewolf and a vampire decide to share a flat in London…sounds like a joke, but it really the plot to a UK drama called “Being Human”. I’m finally getting around to watching the Season 1 marathon that was rebroadcast on BBCAmerica last month. There is a Syfy version of the show, but like many of the American versions of UK shows, the UK version is much better. The 2nd season on BBCAmerica has already started. If ya can check it out

@Comrade DougJ: Second the Gruet. Owned and operated by a French family. I read somewhere that New Mexico’s wine making history is older than California’s, that Prohibition knocked it out. Following Prohibition, California came back strong while NM puttered along.

Gotta love a world view that equates civil-servant unions seeking to form alliances with local businesses as “thuggish,” while when their own show up at demonstrations packing guns or at town halls to disrupt proceedings by shouting down representatives with wholly-manufactured lies, it’s “vibrant” (or somesuch equivalent).

@Vibrant Pantload, fka Studly Pantload: I’m trying to figure out how The Left can simultaneously be effete and gutless, and so scary that the new (38% of the vote, Teahadi-approved) governor of Maine needs a bodyguard none of his predecessors seem to have felt a need for.

It’s ‘due to the changing political climate’, says the governor’s spokesperson.

@cleek: I’ve avoided NC wines since receiving a bottle of something or other from Biltmore Estates oh, about 15 years ago. I thought it was quite dreadful but perhaps it was my lack of appreciation for the vino at that time in my life. Which NC reds would you recommend?

As more and more media outlets offer “right vs. left” debates where both sides agree that we should go to war with Gaddafi’s Libya (NPR’s All Things Considered being the latest), it’s going to get harder and harder for people to understand that our moral beliefs about the situation there don’t mean war in Libya is wise.

And make no mistake, as soon as we bomb the first target in Libya, we are at war.

The main error of the left in America is that most of them are too queasy and antsy to actually read the alternate history being produced daily that somewhere around half of America takes for God’s honest truth.

Steve Poizner–who tried to out-wingnut Megs for the right to spend a lot of money to be pulverized by Jerry Brown–used to pack heat at the office as state insurance commissioner. The, uh, rationale was he could because it’s technically a law enforcement position.

One of the scant amusing bits in this season’s “Big Love” is all the elected officials packin’ heat at the state house.

I have a bone to pick with a throwaway line in Joel Stein’s little wine from 50 states article. He says Wisconsin’s beer sucks. He obviously knows shit about beer. Wisconsin has at least 4 or 5 top notch breweries.

Colorado wines are getting quite good. I have yet to drink anything that’s been life-changing yet, but there are a good number of wines made from Bordeaux and Rhone grape varietals that compete with mid-level California wines. California just has a more substantial spectrum of quality. (Plenty of swill comes off of the left coast too.) That said, just received an invitation to drink wine with Larry Turley and Ehren Jordan. I must have died and gone to heaven!

Just got in from work and I’m not going to wade through the 500 comments of blogmeta that are waiting for me.
I find it makes nearly as much sense and entertains me more if I start at the bottom and work my way up.

Late to the game, but I cannot recommend MA champagne style sparkling whites highly enough – my favourite vineyard, Westport Rivers makes some specacular blanc de blanc and does tours. They’re also partnered with a great microbrewery owned by members of the same family – mmmm White Whale ale….